A workshop on Management and Conservation of World Heritage Sites at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Hiroshima in July illustrated the power of protecting spaces of cultural and natural uniqueness.

Do you remember the video game Pac-Man? Pac-Man busily eats up as many dots as possible. Don’t we humans tend to act quite similarly in regards to our environment, natural resources, ecosystem, wildlife and cultural phenomena? Pac-Man, oil drillers, hotel developers, tiger hunters and ethnic conflict initiators would be well advised to slow down. Another successful approach is to border endangered areas, monuments, and cultural traditions through invisible yet effective systems, agreements and regulations.

Both actions are crucial to keep man-made corrupting influences at bay and guard and respect the beauty and complexity of our natural environment and cultural diversity. UNITAR’s series on the Management and Conservation of World Heritage Sites focuses on the effective management of the world’s most precious natural and cultural treasures.

Specific regional, national and international laws, regulations and conservation instruments help to create protected areas, which enhances the opportunities for researching and learning from natural phenomena and the wisdoms imbedded in each and every culture on this planet. We from Heritage in Action had the privilege to attend this year’s workshop by UNITAR that focused on UNESCO’s new Preparing World Heritage Nominations manual and the related issues of management, decision-making and policy formulation. In relation to other types of protected areas, an inscription on the World Heritage List (that is if a site is of outstanding universal value) makes for only a small percentage of protected areas worldwide, but the principles for protection are generally the same.
Manuals, rules and policies may sound pretty theoretical and bureaucratic, but looking at the bigger picture and the results worldwide achieved thus far encouraged each participant to acknowledge precisely those procedures as best practice for safeguarding vanishing phenomena in the cultural and natural realm.

With 30 participants from 19 different nations the workshop in Hiroshima brought together a potpourri of enthusiastic, skilled and imaginative people working in the heritage field. We all aimed to return to our respective countries applying what we learned – starting processes that will confine and protect specific natural and cultural areas.

Hiroshima is home to one of three UNITAR offices and has two preserved cultural sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List:

(1) Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Atomic Bomb Dome) (inscribed 1996)
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. Through the efforts of many people, including those of the city of Hiroshima, it has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. Not only is it a stark and powerful symbol of the most destructive force ever created by humankind; it also expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons. (Source: UNESCO World Heritage Center)

(2) Itsukushima Shinto Shrine (inscribed 1996)
The island of Itsukushima, in the inland sea just outside of Hiroshima, has been a holy place of Shintoism since the earliest times. The first shrine buildings here were probably erected in the 6th century and the present shrine dates from the 12th century. The shrine was inscribed on the basis of its being a supreme example of this form of religious centre, setting traditional architecture of great artistic and technical merit against a dramatic natural background and thereby creating a work of art of incomparable physical beauty. (Source: UNESCO World Heritage Center)

Find here more information about UNITAR’s Cultural Heritage Training website

The cyclone which hit Burma on May 2nd 3rd, 2008, affected about 2.4 million people. Storm victims are still suffering in the aftermath of the natural disaster with little to no help arriving thanks to a government which has sealed off the country and prohibited the entry of international assistance. And the country’s ancient Buddhist monuments experience the same neglect by the military junta as its people do. In a country with a military dictatorship trampling on its people as much as on its historically valuable monuments, can it be possible to preserve cultural heritage?

One of the holiest sites for Southeast Asia’s Buddhists, the 2,500-year-old Shwedagon Pagoda in the former capital Yangon, was badly damaged by the storm. Hundreds of gold-leaf panels were torn off the 98-meter high bell-shaped stupa and 1,000 precious stones fell off. But with the junta concentrating its relief work on the largest city, and not on the much worse affected Irrawaddy Delta area, life at this important pagoda quickly returned to normal without reports on damaged or stolen cultural objects from the Shwedagon Pagoda.

While the Irrawaddy Delta is completely devastated we cannot really tell if there are any archaeological or cultural sites damaged. Very little had been excavated so far, because this region has been considered “low priority for the Department of Archaeology”, according to Donald Stadtner, an art historian specializing in Burma. Large impressive monasteries, which we can find in other parts of the country, housing wood sculptures and manuscript chests, the only things of ‘value’, are few in the Delta.“And therefore,” Stadtner emphasizes, “the little what is known about cultural heritage sites in this area are scores of 15th -16th century kiln sites. But its celadon ceramics are of poor quality compared to Thai ware. And when villagers have discovered kilns in the past, 99% of the material was heavily damaged.”

Burma has also no ancient sites inscribed in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Not because they wouldn’t have any sites worth being recognized as such, but because they disqualified themselves from being included in it. Like with the international aid in the cyclone disaster the generals would not accept any foreign help and expertise for conserving their magnificent cultural heritage. The fanciful and unsystematic restorations of monuments carried out in the mid-nineties left international archaeologists in dismay. The calculated disregard of dying people in the delta region this May left the international community speechless, once again. One wonders how a culture can survive without its people, or without its history.
We don’t know what the status of the cultural sites and artifacts are and hope that they are safe.